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My year in review

Wait … what do you mean we need to get a Christmas tree? It seems that 2016 flew by and 2017 is already knocking on the door. As 2016 draws to a close, I would like to take a look back to see what happened and what we can expect for the year ahead.

As a company, it was an exciting year where we had a big growth, and became even more structured and performant. Due to our agile structure we were able to focus on upcoming technologies and for example started our VR Department with a dedicated test area.

Looking at the global testing trends of the past year, a few things caught my eye.

I worked on many projects this year for all kind of companies. Every time I started one, I heard the words ‘continuous’ and ‘deployment’ as I walked into the room. This is a trend that has been going on for quite some time already, but this was the first year that I heard this through almost everywhere. I notice that even the bigger & more hierarchal companies have jumped on the band-wagon too.

Another interesting development is the continuing and growing use of open source tooling. Selenium and SoapUI are showing up everywhere I go, while paid tools like QTP are seen less.
There is of course a big divide between multi-nationals and the smaller companies, but even the bigger companies seem to be using open source tooling now, especially since it can fit in with their needs more easily.

Within spriteCloud we saw a big rise in mobile & tablet testing requests in 2016. Companies and digital agencies are clearly shifting from the use of traditional media to the use of digital channels to reach their core target groups. With the rapid development of mobile hardware, a much more immersive experience can be delivered. This is a trend I expect we will see continuing to grow.

Lastly, I should not forget upcoming technologies. 2016 saw VR go mainstream. Oculus and Vive are selling top-notch hardware for the enthusiast who can afford it. Meanwhile, established companies have started to push out their easier to use, entry-level experiences.

Samsung brought out their Samsung Gear VR that can be used with their Galaxy series phones.
Google announced Daydream and are releasing their own headset.
Sony pushed out Playstation VR in the last quarter of this year, a system easily used by anyone owning a PlayStation 4 and having €400.- spare. Analysts expect around 1.6 Million units to be sold in 2016 alone(1).

As discussed in previous posts, VR presents exciting new challenges for testers everywhere.
Signing off, I would like to wish you all a lovely Christmas and New Year and an awesome start of 2017!